IPAC Report 43: The West Kalimantan Election and the Impact of the Anti-Ahok Campaign

(Jakarta, 21 February 2018) West Kalimantan’s election for governor on 27 June 2018 will be a contest between candidates divided by religion and ethnicity, exacerbated by the fallout from Jakarta politics, but local observers say the risk of violence is overstated. Local officials and community leaders should still work out a strategy that identifies potential flashpoints and anticipates scenarios that could lead to localised communal clashes so that preventive measures are in place as campaigning gets underway.

The West Kalimantan Election and the Impact of the Anti-Ahok Campaign, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), looks at the candidate slates and how they emerged, with the two strongest representing Dayaks and Muslims respectively. It also examines the influence in the province of the Islamist movement in late 2016 that led to the imprisonment of Ahok, Jakarta’s Christian governor on blasphemy charges.